John Howell
The picture below is from the Shanghai Expo Closing Ceremony.
How are the young ladies playing the mandolins and violins seated: how’s it done?
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Chris Woolf
Found the answer…
[edited] Their left leg has a hidden “prosthesis” from foot to hip, made of a titanium steel as used in aeroplanes, which is very light with a total weight of 1 kg. The “prosthesis” is capable of extension and flexion, and when bent at the knee it becomes an invisible chair.
There is a hole with diameter 2.5cm on the stage: when the high heels of the musicians go into the hole, their invisible "chair" device will be fixed through this hole, so their body and the "Chair " will have a balance pivot point.
Albert Barber
I prefer the suspenders on Pan’s People –
Always put a spring in the step.
Dave Howell
Terribly old fashioned and non pc of course, but we are, aren’t we.
And it was the swinging saucy sexy sixties after all!
Albert Barber
Yes it’s interesting how things have changed. Can you now mention things like the simple boyish pleasure in suspenders?
Nowadays you seem to be censored on what you are saying. The Saville thing has made the way we discuss things less human. It’s not that it shouldn’t be investigated but Chaucer, that old English poet, never had the same problem in his day. People were people and on the whole good….and there were some bad, very bad, ones too.
Admittedly there were the weirdoes then too, but everyone tended to steer clear of them and girls especially could spot them a mile off.
During the war troops would put on the backs of their letters to wives and girlfriends NORWICH. (if you don’t know work it out, it starts with (k)nickers) Ho ho how droll everyone thought.
You would always respect girls but you did enjoy the sheer wonderful loveliness of them, and the tantalising glimpses of underwear. That’s if you were hetero….ooops can I say that?
It’s this way of treating people of real human beings nowadays that is being sanitised, not just girls. You can’t ‘invade peoples personal space’, you can’t call a girl ‘my love’ as my mother used to do as she was from Yorkshire….can I say that too or is it discriminatory to loves, gay or not…oops can I say that either and am I being opinionated against? …or for? ….I don’t know, ….about people from Yorkshire?
You can’t open doors for girls or should they be called women, or should a postman be called a post person if the are a woman….?
….. I’m fed up with it….Bo**ocks….ooops done it again.
Nick Ware
What always amused me was how the BBC, when the Telly Centre was being designed, had the forethought to make the lighting gantries strong enough to withstand the weight of all those Sparks when P’s P were rehearsing!
I’m reminded of a magic moment at Riverside. I was working on something very dull in R1 with dear long-lost friend John Staple. I had with me the sound department’s Nagra III recorder, and on seeing it, John said: "Let’s have some fun with it!" We wandered through to what had once been the dubbing theatre, and was currently Pan’s People’s rehearsal room. Bold as brass, John sat them on the floor in a semi-circle and proceeded to interview them! Quite intimately, what’s more. With minimal prompting from me (I was as spellbound as they were) he held court with all six of them, plus choreographer Flick Colby. It was only when the tape ran out after what to me had been a 20 minute masterclass in how to chat up seven gorgeous girls all at once, that one of them asked what we were doing it for. "Oh nothing at all", he replied, "We were bored next door and just thought we’d have some fun with you". They loved it, and when I think of how many millions of men would have given anything for the chance to get that close …
Might take some finding, but I know that tape is still up in my loft somewhere.
John Staple was a wonderfully unique character. The true story of how he met his untimely end, I couldn’t possibly tell here! Some of you may already know. R.I.P., J.S.
Pat Heigham
‘Dear God!’ JohnStaple.
I never knew until a few weeks ago that he married Jan Leeming.
He was a wonderfully extrovert character, and like Nick, have several great memories of working with him. I recall one time, again Riverside, I think, in the middle of a recording, John suddenly exclaimed that he was dying for a pee. "I’ll think of something sexy!" he said. A moment later: "Ah! That’s done it!"
I believed that he died in an aeroplane accident in South Africa, as he was a light aircraft pilot, that could have been caused by terrorists?
Anyone know the truth?
I loved the story behind Robert Powell and Babs Lord:
Babs Lord was a really sweet Miss
Robert Powell was quite sure of this
They married one day
And it’s quite true to say
They still celebrate wedded bliss!
Babs Lord married actor Robert Powell and became an amateur yachtswoman and world explorer.
I heard that he fancied her, but didn’t know quite how to pursue her, so he invited the whole troupe out to dinner, making sure she sat next to him!
What style!
